I have provided a link to a review for each of these films. I have deliberately chosen a wide variety of sources for those links, and I encourage you to search out additional information on each film. If you want to start browsing, you can use IMDB's amazing keyword search on the word surveillance.

History

To start with, we need some history and context. The earliest cinema was more like surveillance cameras than it was what we think of as film now. So, for example:

• early cinema including Muybridge's horse and the nude on the steps, to show cinema's connection to "observation" and time.

Technical - Real time

Another key element in surveillance is the extent to which it is running in real time. Once film gave up this characteristic with the first edits, it took a long time to come back. For the most part it remains an obscure or arty form of film. There are a couple of films that are notable for their use of a real time, no edits, effect:

• Rope by Hitchcock (for the "real time" element) (Rope in Wikipedia) and also
• Time Code by Mike Figgis.

Ethics

There are no lack of films that moralize on the "ethics" of surveillance. A few notable ones include

• End of Violence by Wim Wenders
• Rear Window by Hitchcock and
• Blowup, by Antonioni

Audio surveillance

Surveillance is not always using a lens, and there are a couple of really interesting films that explore the audio aspect of surveillance, including

• Pillow Talk - a silly late 1950s film with Rock Hudson and Doris Day inadvertantly sharing a party line telephone. Hilarity ensues from the listening in that goes on. Certainly not the serious engagement with surveillance that we find in the next two films.
• Blow Out by de Palma and
• The Conversation by Coppola

The latter film is notable in that it gives us an introduction to a character played by Gene Hackman who is brought back almost 30 years later, in Enemy of the State, and played by Gene Hackman again.

Psychological impact

The Conversation is also notable in that it plays up the mental anguish and paranoia that comes with the job of being a surveillance subject or a surveillance expert. A similar theme is also found in these films:

• The President's Analyst. A spy spoof in which the psychologist realizes he is being watched, and gradually goes crazy because of it.
• The Truman Show. Here we see someone's whole life played out as televised entertainment (akin to the "reality tv" genre of the early 21st century) but he doesn't know it.

Big Brother

No course on surveillance would be complete without consideration of "1984" and there is a terrific version available, called 1984 which stars John Hurt and Richard Burton.

• 1984, by Michael Radford (unfortunately the North American DVD does not contain the Eurythmics soundtrack - even though it claims it is there on the cover - which is supposed to be excellent). This should always be followed, I think, by
• Brazil by Terry Gilliam, which in many ways reprises some of the themes in Orwell's book and gives them an odd modern/antiquated spin.

The state

The whole government surveillance theme wouldn't be complete in any modern cinema treatment without the hugely successful

• Enemy of the State

Data surveillance

Then, we'd want to consider the computer side of things, and for this we'd look to

• The Net, with Sandra Bullock, and
• Hackers, a quirky early take on computer surveillance and hacking

Biosurveillance

The biosurveillance aspect is well done in two chilling movies that have come out in the last decade,

• Gattaca and
• Minority Report

Self-surveillance

Finally, one of the modern themes that I have been exploring is the use of surveillance for self-surveillance. In this category I would include the Jodie Foster thriller

• Panic Room and
• Birthday Girl, with Nicole Kidman (just the opening scenes of him using the web cam to find a mail order bride...)
• Final Cut stars Robin Williams as a "cutter" who is tasked with putting together flattering remembrances based on the chips embedded in people's brains, recording all they experienced, all their life. The ultimate in self-surveillance, I guess.

Surveillance and crime

Surveillance is a factor in many crime dramas.

• Thomas Crown affair (the second one, not the original), has a lot of video surveillance, as Peirce Brosnan tries to lift some art from under the noses of watchful museum security staff.
• Ocean's 11 is another movie I have just purchased. It is useful for a couple of reasons - it is representative of the "surveillance in commission of crimes" genre of films, i.e., the crooks are using/thwarting the surveillance system. Second, it is representative of the whole "surveillance as mcguffin" notion - that the surviellance is a pivot point for the plot, that it actually allows the movie to succeed (or at least the plot hinges on it).
• Another of this genre is The Real McCoy (a forgettable Kim Basinger vehicle, but similar in the use of "fake" video fed into the surveillance system). I suspect a cinema student could identify the origins of this trick and how it existed in other forms before surveillance cameras, but I can't think of any examples off the top of my head.
• Michael Mann's Collateral Damage - with Jamie Foxx as a cab driver forced to take hitman Tom Cruise around LA as he does his awful business - includes a detailed surveillance scene.

Other movies (unviewed, etc).

I haven't got a category for all of these, or they need to move into one of the above categories, or perhaps they make up their own categories.

• Arlington Road is a movie I have just received and haven't yet viewed, but it looks interesting.
• Der Reise (The Giant), a film from 1984 by German cinematographer Michael Klier. I haven't been able to locate a copy of this film, so if you know where I can find one, let me know. The film is apparently amazing in that it consists entirely of footage from surveillance cameras.
• Body Double - in the "watching people through the window" genre (a bit like Rear Window, in that respect) but sordid and seedy, as we are watching porn stars. Melanie Griffiths makes an appearance.
• 8MM - ick.
• Blade Runner - classic, and some interesting surveillance elements.
• Brother from another planet - when he takes his eye out and leaves it as a surveillance "camera"... that is too cool.
• THX1138 - a student film that made it to distribution, and shows you George Lucas in his early days.
• Red Road - which also uses a lot of footage from surveillance cameras, apparently. Appeared first at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. I haven't seen it, but there are some comments in the news.
• Deathwatch - suggested by Paul Heyer and Alison Hearn - stars Harvey Keitel as a guy with a camera embedded in his head. See moria and eofftv
• Burns and Allen - a 1950s TV show starting George Burns and Gracie Allen, building on their earlier radio work, in which a running gag was a TV set that could be tuned in to a neighbour's apartment. Suggested by Bill Buxton.
• Scanner Darkly - a Phillip K Dick novel, adapted to screen in a graphic novel style, starring Keanu Reaves, Robert Downey Jr, Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder. Not yet released on DVD.
• Cache Georges, who hosts a TV literary review, receives packages containing videos of himself with his family -- shot secretly from the street -- and alarming drawings whose meaning is obscure. He has no idea who may be sending them. Gradually, the footage on the tapes becomes more personal, suggesting that the sender has known Georges for some time. Georges feels a sense of menace hanging over him and his family but, as no direct threat has been made, the police refuse to help...
• Stakeout Convinced that a dangerous escaped convict (Aidan Quinn) is headed for his ex-girlfriend's (Madeleine Stowe), a pair of Seattle detectives (Richard Dreyfuss, Emilio Estevez) stakeout her apartment. The watch remains routine until one of the detectives begins a high-risk romance with the woman under surveillance -- jeopardizing not only the partners' careers ... But also their lives!
• The Hills Have Eyes
• Blair Witch Project
• Peeping Tom
• Videodrome
• Alone with her
• Disturbia